funny (if not necessarily "passive-aggressive") notes from pissed-off people

Entries from September 2007

Writes our anonymous submitter in Corte Madera, California: “We have a lot of passive-aggressive notes up around the office, and most of them are addressed to the entire office staff in common areas. You can imagine my surprise when after eating lunch and going out for a smoke break with some coworkers today, we came back to find a bit of passive-aggressiveness on our lunch table — not 15 minutes after we had left it. Grrrrr.”

Craig from Nottingham, England snapped these at the pub where his cousin works. (Apologies for the blurriness — just pretend you’ve already knocked back a few pints.)

By the way, if you’d like to go meet Stephen and shake his hand, Craig says the name of the pub is The Flowing Spring, in Henley. Stephen seems like a kindred spirit to Desi’s New York dungeon master, no?

Frequent troublemaker Team Cassandra sends us a dispatch from her trip to old Montreal. The charmant hostel she stayed in had 32 hostelers, two bathrooms, one kitchen, lots of awkward signage, and an overall vibe of, “I’ve said this 10, 000 times and I’m not saying it again.”

Our anonymous submitter has held on to this e-mail for more than five years now, but she still has no idea what she did to offend the sender. She barely knew him at the time, she says, “and needless to say, I don’t know him any better now, except I have a better handle on his mental state.”

Joshua brings us this amazing pair of notes from his apartment building in Philly.

The backstory: “A bulk package of cat food (probably 20 or so cans) was delivered and sat in the hallway for about 4 or 5 days. We could see what it was because the sides of the package were cardboard, but the top was clear plastic. (Like what you’d find at Costco). On day 3 or 4 of the cat food being left in the hallway, the plastic had been torn back and a few cans were taken.” The next day, the package was claimed, and this note appeared…

Two days later — luckily, after Joshua snapped a photo — the note disappeared. In its place…

4. You used the dishes and baking ware that we provided to you and often did not clean them, left them to ruin, or left them for someone else to clean because you were too busy rushing out the door to go party when you had all day off. If you have all day off, do something more than try to find someone, anyone to hang out with that night that just so happens to have a car and is willing to pick your lazy ass up.

22. Your friends have no right to use and mess up our bathroom. You have your own, it’s part of your room. Also, if they are going to be putting fruit remains in our garbage can, have them removed before they rot. While we’re on the subject…

23. Fruit flies. Need I say more?

25. We were quite upset that you didn’t buy us anything for Christmas worth more than $3. It’s not the money really, but $1.50 each, that’s just insulting. We noticed that week you borrowed money from your current fling to go out and party. I hope you did buy a self-help book at Chapters like you said you were planning.

29. When people have to work very early in the morning, like at 5am, it’s not very nice to have your loud-mouthed boyfriend chatting with you all night, take it somewhere else. Like his mom’s house where he still lives…

30. The clogged toilet thing, you got off easy on that one. Plumbing and property damage is a lot more important than rushing out the door to hang out with your friends. Prioritize.

33. The comment you made about being the type of person who can’t live with someone is something you should take serious consideration of. How are you going to continue living your faux Sex and the City lifestyle if your goal in life is to find a man you can live with, and if you are not the type of person that can actually live with someone?” B.M.

While Jessica was a college student in Boston, she lived in a five-person apartment with one friend and three strangers. Jess says apartment issues were rarely (if ever talked about directly (there was but one “meeting), but were instead handled through a series of “love notes” from Anne, like this one.

Most of the points in this letter, Jessica adds, were directed at one person in particular — her friend, with whom Anne shared a room. And when Anne was told to “remind people to clean” at the meeting, Jess says she and her roommates were simply referring to when and if it began to bother her. Oh, and the building’s rodent problem was a pre-existing condition.